Links: Ben Franklin butter statue makes new biofuel, Navy Yard energy project and more

DEFINITE READS

• Mike Armstrong of the Inquirer puts a critical eye to the big-scale, $129 million energy innovation hub planned for the Philadelphia Navy Yard, as led by Penn State.
• The New York Times highlights how an 800-pound Benjamin Franklin butter statue has led to the next great biodiesel fuel craze, with the help of Center City-based BlackGold Biofuels.
• Keystone Edge profiles Center City-based design firm Bresslergroup and Lititz-based Woodstream and their collaboration around improving the mousetrap. Yup.

Below, find what Philly developer was listed as 15 nationally to follow on Twitter, robots at Pennsylvania Hospital and more.

Read more

Comcast Roundup: Al Franken still hates NBC deal, ’30 Rock’ will stay on and More

Every Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. EST, find all the stories you need to know about your friendly telecommunications giant in the Comcast Roundup. Get an e-mail subscription for our Comcast news updates.

DEFINITE READS

• Ars Technica reports that Sen. Al Franken, perhaps the most vocal critic of the NBC deal, again voiced his frustration with the proposed deal.
• Broadcasting & Cable reports that Comcast outlined its program access philosophy to regulators of its NBC deal. H/T Philly Tech News
• The Wall Street Journal reports on the last minute bombarding of the FCC by Comcast opponents regarding the NBC deal. [Paywall]

Below, is Hulu headed toward an IPO, a Philly product rollout and more.

Read more

Comcast COO makes most expensive Philly rowhome purchase ever

Comcast COO Stephen Burke is the new owner of the 8,120 square foot, brick rowhome that is blocks from Rittenhouse Square Park and has been heralded as becoming the most expensive such purchase in Philadelphia history.

Our friends at Brownstoner Philadelphia were the first to push out that the $5.85 million closing in May was marked as the city’s priciest. The 1817 Delancey Place property is listed as being owned by Stephen and Gretchen Burke, the COO’s wife, according to a 2009 Forbes profile. Another source confirmed on background that the new owners are the Comcast Burkes.

Burke has developed a reputation out of the proposed takeover of NBC Universal, as it has been asserted that Burke would help lead the uniting of the two companies and, as Reuters put it back in December, everybody loves Burke, even Warren Buffet.

In 2009, Burke’s total compensation package rang in at nearly $34 million, including a $2.3 million base salary, a $3 million bonus and $10 million in stock awards, according to Forbes.

In June, Burke’s boss, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, made news by reportedly looking at Manhattan real estate. It’s nice to see Burke keeping it local.

Brownstoner, Brooklyn real estate blog, launches in Philly

Something about “rowhouser” didn’t sound right to Jonathan Butler.

So today, the founder of popular Brooklyn real estate, renovation and restaurant blog Brownstoner, launches a Philadelphia edition under the same brand. That expansion, Butler says, will dictate greatly the direction of the five-year-old site.

Launched in October 2004, Brownstoner is no small force, pulling roughly 200,000 unique visitors and 1.5 million page views a month, Butler says — see the always debated public traffic figures for the site from Quantcast and Compete — and it just so happens to not be the only blog born in New York to open up shop in Philadelphia this year.

Like Midtown Lunch, Brownstoner brings a brand name with a decidedly New York tone to a city not known for a healthy appreciation for its younger brother to the north. So, its expansion just might make for a hell of a conversation on authenticity and the future of growing hyperlocal news. And it all came about because one of the site’s contributors wanted to move.

Read more

Technically Not Tech: Kevin Kiene CEO of EZ Landlord Forms

If you build a great product, your customers will be your best advertisers.

That’s something Kevin Kiene has learned. The founder of ezLandlord Forms, an online provider of property-management legal documents, remembers a time before that lesson was entirely his.

“In the beginning, we were marketing and advertising before we had a great product,” he said of his Web site, which will turn three this August. “We have a great product now.”

There were usability and design concerns and nowhere near the breadth of options the site now offers. But a lot can change in three years.

Last month, they launched a complete site redesign and are in the process of becoming a green certified business and doubling their staff. This month, they surpassed 300,000 members, many of whom are paying into its subscription model, pushing year-to-date sales by more than 225 percent. In September, HGTV’s Designing Spaces will be shooting a segment on the site to air at the year’s end.

“Business,” Kiene says, “is good.”

The company, which has office space in Cinnaminson, N.J., currently features seven employees who work from their homes across the country, including a Willow Grove-based Web developer and Kiene, 40, a native of Fox Chase in Northeast Philadelphia.

But Kiene, who now lives in Frankford, is proud to talk about the site’s national appeal, in addition to its growing traffic and how the idea for ezLandlord Forms came to him because he could never find a lease that would square away who was taking care of the damn lawn.

Read more